


listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox

by Wolvesandwerewolves



Series: I’m With You in Rockland [14]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves
Summary: Vanya and Diego sit together in the morning, drinking coffee and talking.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: I’m With You in Rockland [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865728
Comments: 17
Kudos: 142





	listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox

**Author's Note:**

> sup guys, i FINALLY WROTE THIS CHAPTER. I had absolutely no idea what to write here or how i wanted things to go. but I knew that if i sat down and just wrote, something would come out bc that’s what ive been forcing myself to do since i started this series. Vanya is still super hard to write tho.
> 
> anyways, here goes, vanya & diego are friends now and they deserve the world
> 
> sorry this isn’t as ~poetic~ as some of its earlier ones, like I said vanya is hard and also so is plot :( maybe ill edit tomorrow ?

Vanya rememberers when she was a little girl, and all her other siblings were sat out in the empty front area of their house, all getting matching tattoos. They were much too young for it; she can still hear Alison crying, and Ben quietly comforting her. She thinks they must have been around ten years old, only a few months after their debut at the bank that one cold, windy day. _Children_. Not even teenagers, then. 

But it was a bonding experience. Something that tied them all together forever, maybe more than their own childhood of fighting crime did. It was there, forever, a lone umbrella marked into the skin for every single one of them. 

Except for her and Klaus. She remembers standing at the stairs with him, just out of the way. They drew fake tattoos on each other’s arms, their own little version of trying to be included even though they never were. 

Later, they got their own tattoos. In the same spot as all their siblings, on the opposite arm instead, a tiny little cocktail umbrella. They’d both laughed for days, even if she had tears in her eyes at the time, because even when it was funny and mocking, it still hurt. They’d been excluded their entire lives. They only had each other.

But it makes her smile. And it hasn’t made Vanya cry since it was still fresh enough to sting. She has never regretted it.

But she wonders if her father ever regrets it. If he ever regrets lying to them their entire fucking lives, for belittling them as tiny, helpless children, and raising them in the shadows, telling the whole world he only ever adopted five children instead of seven.

He probably doesn’t. 

She still doesn’t know what her powers are. Or if she even has any. Maybe she’s the only ordinary one. 

She has to remind herself that she will be okay with that. She’s learned to accept herself even if she’s never embraced or celebrated herself like Klaus. Whatever happens she will still have him, and still have their matching tattoo on her arm, forever.

She’s fine.

Diego makes coffee for them every morning. He’s been here with them for three whole days, and she and Klaus have been here for five. He sleeps in, though, still used to working nights and staying up so late it’s morning. He comes to the kitchenette at 7 to take his pills, but Vanya doesn’t have to get up that early anymore, and most of the time she doesn’t get up until after her brother has gone back to bed. She’s been having trouble sleeping. 

This place is so much different than the city she’s used to. 

She thinks it’s something Diego isn’t sure of yet, either. He looks tired, sitting at the other side of the table from her, eyes half closed and dark underneath. He yawns when he tries to take a sip of his coffee, and ends up putting the mug down halfway through it. 

Vanya hides a smile behind her own steaming mug. It feels odd, having him here now when he never has been before. But it’s nice. He’s trying. He’s been trying for months, and he’s learning and asking her questions about—well, everything. Her major at school, her plans for after, Klaus’s job and his mental health, everything. She’s learning about him, too. He became a cop after he’d left the academy, because he wanted to help people like he did before, and because he wasn’t sure what else to do. He’s sort of dating an officer he works with, Eudora, and his smile every time he mentions her is shy. It reminds her of the uncertain, stuttering child she remembers so long ago. 

And even though they’re the same exact age, it feels almost like having an older brother. Which is something she will never, ever admit to.

But she does like having him here. She thinks Klaus is still feeling it out, getting used to him, but he says Ben is happy they’re all here, too. 

Diego yawns again, and scowls at nothing in particular, from what she can tell. Vanya smiles again, tries to stifle her own yawn. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks.

Diego groans. He rubs at his eyes. “No,” he says. “I miss the city. It’s too quiet.”

Vanya chuckles and shakes her head. For her, it’s the exact opposite. “I think it’s too loud.”

He snorts, raises his eyebrows at her like she’s dumb. “Are you kidding? We’re all alone. There’s nothing to be loud, except Klaus talking in his sleep.”

Vanya rolls her eyes. She’s used to that, by now. What she isn’t used to is the absence of lone cars driving past at night, sirens wailing in the distance, her neighbor’s tv being left on all night and the couple upstairs that laughs too loudly at midnight. But that doesn’t mean it’s quiet. Even though there are no people here, they’re not really alone. Every night while she’s trying to sleep, she hears owls right outside, wolves or coyotes howling in the distance. It’s distracting. 

“You’re deaf,” she mumbles, sipping at her coffee and avoiding his eyes. 

This time Diego rolls his eyes at her. He huffs. 

“Right. What exactly do you hear at night? The snow falling?”

Vanya laughs again. She shrugs, trying hard not to feel self conscious even when her cheeks are getting warm. “I don’t know. Everything. The wolves howling, the owls. Sometimes the trees rustle with the wind. And the wood in the fireplace pops or cracks sometimes. You don’t notice any of that?“

Diego frowns at her. He has his chin resting in one hand, the other playing with the handle of his coffee mug, idly spinning it around the wooden table. “No,” he says, but he looks much more thoughtful, now. 

“What?” she asks. 

“Close your eyes,” he says. 

Vanya blinks. She starts to shake her head, suddenly uneasy, but her brother interrupts her. 

“Trust me,” he says. 

She sighs. She thinks of how much he’s helped them, these past few months. Searching for Klaus, taking him to the hospital after—well, that awful night—even visiting him when he didn’t have to. And how he checked up on her, sometimes in uniform and sometimes not, every single week even after Klaus was finally home. That stupid, foil _Get Well_ balloon he’d brought with him two days after, and the way he’d looked so uncomfortable after Klaus laughed at him for it, before he said he absolutely loved it and would never get rid of it. 

And how he makes them coffee every morning, and how he’s here, trying to help her discover her own powers so she doesn’t feel so completely lost. 

And the two, small presents he’d brought with him, resting under the tree wrapped in newspaper. Klaus teases him for that, too. 

He’s _here_. So Vanya sighs again, and she takes one more sip of her coffee and she closes her eyes, pointedly frowning at him. 

“Okay. Now what?”

“What do you hear?” Diego asks. 

Vanya shrugs. She closes her eyes harder, tries to pay attention to everything around her. She feels her heart beating hard in her chest, nervous, and hears the blood rushing through her temples. 

“I guess . . . the birds, outside. The wind. The fireplace, and the space heater. The coffee pot dripping. It sounds like Klaus is up, now—I think he’s arguing with Ben. You, breathing. And—” She frowns, shakes her head and concentrates harder. No, that doesn’t make sense, not unless— “Holy shit. Diego, I think I hear your heart beating.”

He laughs. Suddenly, he’s pushing the chair back and standing up. She blinks, and all the noise fades away, and he’s standing right next to her clapping her on the back. 

Vanya thinks maybe she should be excited. Somehow she feels almost angry. Her father hid _this_ from her? Her power is almost as useless as seeing—

of course. Maybe she just wasn’t useful enough. 

She pushes everything down. Her father doesn’t matter. She’s here with Klaus, and Diego, and her powers are _hers_. 

But she still feels her heart beating too fast again, and her eyes are warm. 

“Oh, my God, Diego,” she says, and then she’s hugging him and he’s laughing. She tries to laugh with him and it just sounds wet. 

And then her coffee mug explodes. 

She yelps, gasping and jerking away from her brother, only to jump right back into his arms. He hugs her tight, rubs a thumb along her sweater, brushing the fabric against her shoulder. 

“It’s okay, Vanya,” he says. “Hey, this is what we’re here for. You did it.”

She hears Klaus, his heavy footsteps creaking the old floors, and she opens her eyes and sees him standing at the edge of the hallway in front of her. He’s wearing fleece pajama pants, blue with white and teal snowflakes, and a t-shirt she doesn’t recognize. 

“Oh, dear,” he says, very solemnly, and for some reason it makes her laugh and she feels a little less scared than she was just a few seconds ago. 

Vanya wipes at her eyes and steps away from Diego. He keeps one hand on her shoulder for a few seconds, then lets it drop to his side. 

“Vanya made a glass break,” he says, and he sounds so proud and excited. 

Klaus gasps, claps his hands and bounces up and down on his toes. “Oh, yay! Ben wants you to do it again, he says he’s proud. Ooh, break Diego’s mug this time!” 

“Hey,” Diego says, and Klaus laughs. 

Vanya laughs too. She doesn’t need her father. She has her brothers. 

And she has powers. She’s not ordinary. She never has been. 

“You guys,” she says, and wipes at her eyes again. “I have powers!”

Klaus claps again. He hugs her, warm and tight, and the small goatee he has brushes rough against her temple. He kisses her hair. Diego grips her shoulder. 

Vanya isn’t ordinary. 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write this last night but couldn’t. instead i wrote another unrelated Klaus fic called ‘close your eyes and slip into the comforting embrace of—‘ bc i knew i needed to write smth to keep in the habit at least. yes this is shameless self promotion, go read that rn Im serious, this is ur class assignment 
> 
> also I have a quick confession. sometimes when i respond to ur guys’s comments i am drunk. if you think im answering weird you can either blame it on my ~social anxiety~ or the wine i had with my bestie. ok cool goodnight i love you
> 
> ps. im going to school for massage therapy and someone is getting a hot stone massage when it is predicted 93 degrees out? if I never update this again assume i died of a sick combo of heatstroke, dehydration, and asthma ok


End file.
